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Move to github?

would you be considering moving to github (from both redmine and gitlab), to get more developers attention?

I feel like on github, there is more activity and easier collaboration due to removing friction and familiarity.

I understand that redmine and gitlab are free software, but since it's on your server, as a user I don't particularly care, and I think more active community would mean safer system. It wouldn't make the code less free.

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Moving to Github means supporting nonfree software. While using a nonfree service on a server that you don't own is better than using nonfree software on your own machine, it should be avoided, especially when viable free server options are available and especially when the project is supposed to be free. Replicant puts an emphasis on freedom, not open sourceness, which means that moving to Github would be hypocritical.

If Replicant called itself an open source project, it would make sense to move to Github to enjoy more benefits of open source. However, as it labels itself as a free software project, it should employ free software tools such as Redmine instead in order to enjoy the full benefits of (and emphasize the need for) freedom.

It's very important to differentiate GitLab the website (comparable to GitHub) and GitLab the software (comparable to Redmine). GitLab the website uses nonfree software for their hosting as well, so like GitHub, we shouldn't move there. It's a shame that GitLab bought out and closed down Gitorious; Gitorious hosted using free software.

As for GitLab the software, it comes in two flavors. One is free, but the other isn't. If we're self-hosting with GitLab or finding a GitLab host, we need to be careful and make sure that the free version of the software is being used.

I am not advocating for Replicant to move to a non-free software option. I was unaware that GitLab's hosted option is non-free. I was suggesting that we maybe just ask https://osuosl.org if they are running the most current version of Redmine and if they could evaluate Taiga and the free software version of GitLab as possible redmine replacements.

while we're on the topic, gogs may be better than gitlab and redmine. it's much slimmer, has a git interface and all sorts of other web goodness. free software too, very easy to host on your own infrastructure.

Gogs is interesting, but it also does a lot more than what we need, just like Gitlab. We recently did the switch away from Gitlab to a way more lightweight setup using cgit and Gitolite that now runs very reliable and does everything we need (except for one missing feature). See the mailing list for more info. You have to consider that, including the mirrored repos from LineageOS, we are hosting around 300 repositories at git.replicant.us and some of them are among the biggest source code repos you can find, so finally having a reliable setup that can handle the load was the most important objective.

We are very lucky that the FSF provides us with a VPS and we are able to host the source code ourselves. Why should we give that up and move to one of the centralized hosting providers like Github and Gitlab.com? Github serves non-free Javascript, which definitely matters to the users. Doesn't Gitlab.com also serve non-free Javascript if they include Google's "I'm not a robot" challenges for submissions? I believe so. Besides that, I also agree with the other criticism that was raised.

NotABug.org seems great for hosting your code, but again, why should we give up our own hosting? I can't speak for others involved in Replicant, but I think besides our love for free software, we also share the desire to have a more decentralized Internet with all the advantages that come with it. Doing our own hosting is the best thing we can do in that regard. With our own hosting, we can determine exactly how it should look like. And there is also a precendent: not too long ago, Replicant used Gitorious for hosting which then shut down and caused Replicant quite some trouble. If you depend on one of these source code hosters, things like this can always happen.

I also don't understand what is so bad about Redmine that we should give it up. It has an integrated Wiki and forum which is very nice. It is stable and well tested because it's used by quite a few other established projects. There should be a very good reason to give it up because moving to something else will cost a lot of time.

The original point of this thread is very important: getting more developers involved. The lack of developers and active maintainers is the biggest problem Replicant is facing and I think it's very important to have a discussion about this. But I don't buy that not being on Github or other hosting sites is a reason for lack of developers. There are a lot of other very successful projects like the Linux kernel, freedesktop, Coreboot and Gnome that do their own hosting. Why should being on Github or Gitlab.com lead to more attention? Because someone is starring one of our dozens of repos? Having more familiarity is also not really relevant because a web-based merge workflow for contributions doesn't make sense for us anyway. There are just too many repositories and other Android distributions don't rely on it as well. LineageOS may have their repos on Github, but they are using Gerrit for submissions and review, so their development activity isn't actually on Github, but on their Gerrit instance. It maybe would make sense for us to set up Gerrit at some point, but with the current number of contributors and maintainers, it's not really justified. Someone who wants to contribute code to Replicant has to jump through many hoops, from getting familiar with the code to testing the changes and so on. Actually submitting the finished code shouldn't be one of the bigger issues along the way and we are trying to provide detailed documentation for that.

I like Redmine because it has an API so you can use it with your own software. There is for example Emacs mode for Redmine! Also there are plugins available so if something is missing it can be extended with those.

As wolfgang, I do not think Redmine is the main issue for new developers. And same as former participants, I think non-free software would be a bad solution. For instance, we do not know what gitlab or github do with their metadata.

If I may suggest something, I think some tutorial or doc could help more than a user-friendly interface.